Kitabı oku: «Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, April 1885», sayfa 13
The romantic movement was then upon its fall. The great Oxford movement, which besides its purely ecclesiastical effects, had linked English religion once more to human history, and which was itself one of the unexpected out-comes of the romantic movement, had spent its original force, and no longer interested the stronger minds among the rising generation. The hour had sounded for the scientific movement. In 1859, was published the Origin of Species, undoubtedly the most far-reaching agency of the time, supported as it was by a volume of new knowledge which came pouring in from many sides. The same period saw the important speculations of Mr. Spencer, whose influence on George Eliot had from their first acquaintance been of a very decisive kind. Two years after the Origin of Species came Maine’s Ancient Law, and that was followed by the accumulations of Mr. Tylor and others, exhibiting order and fixed correlation among great sets of facts which had hitherto lain in that cheerful chaos of general knowledge which has been called general ignorance. The excitement was immense. Evolution, development, heredity, adaptation, variety, survival, natural selection, were so many patent pass-keys that were to open every chamber.
George Eliot’s novels, as they were the imaginative application of this great influx of new ideas, so they fitted in with the moods which those ideas had called up. “My function,” she said (iii. 330), “is that of the æsthetic, not the doctrinal teacher – the rousing of the nobler emotions which make mankind desire the social right, not the prescribing of special measures, concerning which the artistic mind, however strongly moved by social sympathy, is often not the best judge.” Her influence in this direction over serious and impressionable minds was great indeed. The spirit of her art exactly harmonised with the new thoughts that were shaking the world of her contemporaries. Other artists had drawn their pictures with a strong ethical background, but she gave a finer color and a more spacious air to her ethics, by showing the individual passions and emotions of her characters, their adventures and their fortunes, as evolving themselves from long series of antecedent causes, and bound up with many widely operating forces and distant events. Here, too, we find ourselves in the full stream of evolution, hereditary, survival, and fixed inexorable law.
This scientific quality of her work may be considered to have stood in the way of her own aim. That the nobler emotions roused by her writings tend to “make mankind desire the social right,” is not to be doubted; that we are not sure that she imparts peculiar energy to the desire. What she kindles is not a very strenuous, aggressive, and operative desire. The sense of the iron limitations that are set to improvement in present and future by inexorable forces of the past, is stronger in her than any intrepid resolution to press on to whatever improvement may chance to be within reach if we only make the attempt. In energy, in inspiration, in the kindling of living faith in social effort, George Sand, not to speak of Mazzini, takes a far higher place.
It was certainly not the business of an artist to form judgments in the sphere of practical politics, but George Eliot was far too humane a nature not to be deeply moved by momentous events as they passed. Yet her observations, at any rate after 1848, seldom show that energy of sympathy of which we have been speaking, and these observations illustrate our point. We can hardly think that anything was ever said about the great civil war in America, so curiously far-fetched as the following reflection: – “My best consolation is that an example on so tremendous a scale of the need for the education of mankind through the affections and sentiments, as a basis for true development, will have a strong influence on all thinkers, and be a check to the arid narrow antagonism which in some quarters is held to be the only form of liberal thought” (ii. 335).
In 1848, as we have said, she felt the hopes of the hour in all their fulness. To a friend she writes (i. 179): – ”You and Carlyle (have you seen his article in last week’s Examiner?) are the only two people who feel just as I would have them – who can glory in what is actually great and beautiful without putting forth any cold reservations and incredulities to save their credit for wisdom. I am all the more delighted with your enthusiasm because I didn’t expect it. I feared that you lacked revolutionary ardor. But no – you are just as sans-culottish and rash as I would have you. You are not one of those sages whose reason keeps so tight a rein on their emotions that they are too constantly occupied in calculating consequences to rejoice in any great manifestation of the forces that underlie our everyday existence.
“I thought we had fallen on such evil days that we were to see no really great movement – that ours was what St. Simon calls a purely critical epoch, not at all an organic one; but I begin to be glad of my date. I would consent, however, to have a year clipt off my life for the sake of witnessing such a scene as that of the men of the barricades bowing to the image of Christ, ‘who first taught fraternity to men.’ One trembles to look into every fresh newspaper lest there should be something to mar the picture; but hitherto even the scoffing newspaper critics have been compelled into a tone of genuine respect for the French people and the Provisional Government. Lamartine can act a poem if he cannot write one of the very first order. I hope that beautiful face given to him in the pictorial newspaper is really his: it is worthy of an aureole. I have little patience with people who can find time to pity Louis Philippe and his moustachioed sons. Certainly our decayed monarchs should be pensioned off: we should have a hospital for them, or a sort of zoological garden, where these worn-out humbugs may be preserved. It is but justice that we should keep them, since we have spoiled them for any honest trade. Let them sit on soft cushions, and have their dinner regularly, but, for heaven’s sake, preserve me from sentimentalizing over a pampered old man when the earth has its millions of unfed souls and bodies. Surely he is not so Ahab-like as to wish that the revolution had been deferred till his son’s days: and I think the shades of the Stuarts would have some reason to complain if the Bourbons, who are so little better than they, had been allowed to reign much longer.”
The hopes of ’48 were not very accurately fulfilled, and in George Eliot they never came to life again. Yet in social things we may be sure that undying hope is the secret of vision.
There is a passage in Coleridge’s Friend which seems to represent the outcome of George Eliot’s teaching on most, and not the worst, of her readers: – “The tangle of delusions,” says Coleridge, “which stifled and distorted the growing tree of our well-being has been torn away; the parasite weeds that fed on its very roots have been plucked up with a salutary violence. To us there remain only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual improvement, the cautious and unhazardous labors of the industrious though contented gardener – to prune, to strengthen, to engraft, and one by one to remove from its leaves and fresh shoots the slug and the caterpillar.” Coleridge goes further than George Eliot, when he adds the exhortation – “Far be it from us to undervalue with light and senseless detraction the conscientious hardihood of our predecessors, or even to condemn in them that vehemence to which the blessings it won for us leave us now neither temptation nor pretext.”
George Eliot disliked vehemence more and more as her work advanced. The word “crudity,” so frequently on her lips, stood for all that was objectionable and distasteful. The conservatism of an artistic moral nature was shocked by the seeming peril to which priceless moral elements of human character were exposed by the energumens of progress. Their impatient hopes for the present appeared to her rather unscientific; their disregard of the past, very irreverent and impious. Mill had the same feeling when he disgusted his father by standing up for Wordsworth, on the ground that Wordsworth was helping to keep alive in human nature elements which utilitarians and innovators would need when their present and particular work was done. Mill, being free from the exaltations that make the artist, kept a truer balance. His famous pair of essays on Bentham and Coleridge were published (for the first time, so far as our generation was concerned) in the same year as Adam Bede, and I can vividly remember how the “Coleridge” first awoke in many of us, who were then youths at Oxford, that sense of truth having many mansions, and that desire and power of sympathy with the past, with the positive bases of the social fabric, and with the value of Permanence in States, which form the reputable side of all conservatisms. This sentiment and conviction never took richer or more mature form than in the best work of George Eliot, and her stories lighted up with a fervid glow the truths that minds of another type had just brought to the surface. It was this that made her a great moral force at that epoch, especially for all who were capable by intellectual training of standing at her point of view. We even, as I have said, tried hard to love her poetry, but the effort has ended less in love than in a very distant homage to the majestic in intention and the sonorous in execution. In fiction, too, as the years go by, we begin to crave more fancy, illusion, enchantment, than the quality of her genius allowed. But the loftiness of her character is abiding, and it passes nobly through the ordeal of an honest biography. “For the lessons,” says the fine critic already quoted, “most imperatively needed by the mass of men, the lessons of deliberate kindness, of careful truth, of unwavering endeavor, – for these plain themes one could not ask a more convincing teacher than she whom we are commemorating now. Everything in her aspect and presence was in keeping with the bent of her soul. The deeply-lined face, the too marked and massive features, were united with an air of delicate refinement, which in one way was the more impressive because it seemed to proceed so entirely from within. Nay, the inward beauty would sometimes quite transform the external harshness; there would be moments when the thin hands that entwined themselves in their eagerness, the earnest figure that bowed forward to speak and hear, the deep gaze moving from one face to another with a grave appeal, – all these seemed the transparent symbols that showed the presence of a wise, benignant soul.” As a wise, benignant soul George Eliot will still remain for all right-judging men and women. —Macmillan’s Magazine.
LORD TENNYSON
BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE
I
Because Song’s brightest stars have crowned his head,
And to his soul their loveliest dreams unfurled,
Because since Shakespeare joined the deathless dead,
No loftier Poet has entranced the world.
II
Because Olympian food, ethereal wine,
Are his who fills Apollo’s golden lute.
Why should he not from his high heaven incline,
To take from lowlier hands their proffered food?
III
Free is the earnest offering! he as free
To condescend toward the gift they bring;
No Dead-Sea apple is a lord’s degree,
To foul the lips of him, our Poet-King.
– London Home Chimes.
IN THE NORWEGIAN MOUNTAINS
BY OSCAR FREDRIK, KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY
Translated, with His Majesty’s permission, by Carl Siewers
If you will accompany us on our journey towards the snow-covered peaks of the Sogne Mountains yonder, you are welcome! But quick, not a moment is to be lost; day is dawning, and we have a long journey before us. It is still five stiff Norwegian miles to the coast in Bergen’s Stift, although we did two yesterday from the last dwelling in the valley of Lom. We ought to be under shelter before dusk; the night might be “rough” up yonder among the white-capped old peaks, so therefore to horse, and forward!
We are compelled to say good-bye to the last Sæter there on the silent shores of the deep gloomy mountain lake, a duty which we perform with no light heart. How strange the Sæter life and dwellings appear to the stranger! How poor this long and dark structure seems at first sight, and yet how hearty and unexpectedly lavish is the hospitality which the simple children of the mountain extend to the weary traveller!
Milk, warm from the cow, fresh-churned butter, reindeer meat, and a couple of delicious trout which we have just seen taken from the lake below, form a regal feast indeed; and, spiced with the keen appetite which the air up here creates, the meal can only be equalled by the luxury of reposing on a soft couch of fresh, fragrant hay.
On the threshold as we depart, stand the pretty Budejer (dairy maids), in the neat costume of the people in the Guldbrandsdal valley, nodding a tender farewell to us, and wishing us a hearty “Lykke paa Reisen.” Yes, there they stand, following us with their gaze as we proceed along the steep mountain path, till we disappear from view in the rocky glen. I said “path.” Well, that is the name assigned to it, but never did I imagine the existence of such a riding “ladder,” and it may well be necessary to have the peculiar race of mountain horses found here, for a rider to get safely to his journey’s end.
Now the road lies through rapid mountain streams, where the roaring waterfall may in an instant sweep man and beast into a yawning abyss below, and now across a precipice, where the lake divides the mountains, and death lurks a yard to your left. Again across the steepest slopes, where Nature appears to have amused herself by tossing masses of jagged, tottering rocks in heaps, and where no ordinary horse’s hoof would find a safe hold. But if you only watch these brave and sagacious little animals, how carefully they consider the slightest movement and measure the smallest step, they will inspire you with the greatest confidence, and you will continue your journey on their back without the slightest fear, along the wildest path, on the edge of the most awe-inspiring abyss. And should one of these excellent cobs stumble, which happened once or twice during our ride, it is only on comparatively safe ground, where probably the horse does not consider much attention is required.
We now climb still higher; gradually the sound of cow bells and the soft melodies from the Lur, (the Norse alpenhorn,) are wafted into space, and in return, a sharp chilly gust of wind, called Fjeldsno, sweeps along the valley slopes, carrying with it the last souvenir of society and civilization. We have long ago left the populated districts behind, the mountain Nature stands before us, and surrounds us in all its imposing grandeur. The roar of the mighty Bæver river is the only sound which breaks the impressive silence, and even this becomes fainter and fainter as we mount higher and higher, and the mass of water decreases and the fall becomes steeper and steeper, till at last the big river is reduced to a little noisy, foaming brook, skipping from rock to rock, and plunging from one ledge to another, twisting its silvery thread into the most fantastic shapes.
The morning had dawned rather dull, which in these altitudes means that we had been enveloped in a thick damp mist; but the gusts from the snow-fields soon chase the heavy clouds away, and seem to sweep them into a heap round the crests of the lofty mountains. At last a streak of blue appears overhead, and through the rent clouds a faint sunbeam shoots across the high plateau, one stronger and more intense follows, a second and third. It’s clearing!
Oh, what a magnificent spectacle! Never will it fade from my recollection; indelibly it stands stamped on my mind. Before us lies a grand glacier, the Smörstabsbræen, from whose icy lap our old acquaintance the Bæver river starts on his laborious journey to the Western Ocean. The bright rays of the noonday sun are playing on the burnished surface of the glacier, which now flashes like a rivière of the choicest diamonds, now glitters clear and transparent as crystal, and now gleams in green and blue like a mass of emeralds and sapphires, the rapid transformation of tint being ten times multiplied by the play of the shadow of the clouds fleeting across the azure heavens. And above the glacier there towers a gigantic mountain with the weird name of “Fanarauken” (The Devil’s Smoke), which may be considered as the solitary vedette of the body of peaks which under the name of Horungtinderne forms the loftiest part of the Jotun or Sogne Mountains. Some of the slopes of the peaks seem covered with white snow, while others stand out in bold relief, jet black in color: somewhat awe-inspiring, with the cold, pale-green background which the sky assumes in the regions of eternal snow. The crests of the Horungtinderne, some six to eight thousand feet above the sea, are steep and jagged, and around them the snow-clouds have settled, and when the wind attempts to tear them away they twirl upwards, resembling smoking volcanoes, which further enhances the strangeness of the scene.
To our right there are some immense snow-fields, still we are told that there is very little snow in the mountains this year!
Long ago we left the last dwarf birch (Betula nana), six feet in height, behind us, and are now approaching the border of eternal snow. We reach it, spring from our horses, and are soon engaged in throwing snowballs at each other.
It is the 15th of August, but the air is icy cold; it is more like one of those clear, cool spring mornings, so familiar to the Northerner, when rude Boreas is abroad, but far more invigorating and entirely free from that unpleasant, raw touch which fosters colds and worse illnesses. Here disease is unknown, one feels as if drinking the elixir of life in every breath, and, whilst the eye can roam freely over the immense plateau, the lungs are free to inhale the pure mountain air untainted.
One is at once gay and solemn. Thought and vision soar over the immense fields and expand with the extended view, and this consciousness is doubly emphasised by the sense of depression we have just experienced under the overhanging mountains in the narrow Sæter’s valley. One feels as if away from the world one is wont to move in, as if parted from life on earth and brought suddenly face to face with the Almighty Creator of Nature. One is compelled to acknowledge one’s own lowliness and impotence. A snow-cloud, and one is buried for ever; a fog, and the only slender thread which guides the wanderer to the distant abode of man is lost.
Never before had I experienced such a sensation, not even during a terrific storm in the Atlantic Ocean, or on beholding the desert of Sahara from the pyramid of Cheops. In the latter case, I am in the vicinity of a populated district and an extensive town, and need only turn round to see Cairo’s minarets and citadel in the distance; and again at sea, the ship is a support to the eye, and I am surrounded by many people, who all participate in the very work which engages myself; I seem to a certain extent to carry my home with me. Whilst here, on the other hand, I am, as it were, torn away from everything dear to me – a speck of dust on the enormous snowdrift – and I feel my own impotence more keenly as the Nature facing me becomes grander and more gigantic, and whose forces may from inaction in an instant be called into play, bringing destruction on the fatigued wanderer. But we did not encounter them, and it is indeed an exception that any danger is incurred. With provisions for a couple of days, sure and resolute guides, enduring horses, and particularly bold courage and good temper, all will go well. As regards good temper, this is a gift of welcome and gratitude: presents from the mountains to the rare traveller who finds his way up here.
Our little caravan, a most appropriate designation, has certainly something very picturesque about it, whether looking at the travellers in their rough cloaks, slouched hats and top boots, or our little long-haired cobs with their strong sinewy limbs and close-cropped manes, or the ponies carrying our traps in a Klöf saddle.
These sagacious and enduring Klöf horses are certainly worth attention.
I cannot understand how they support the heavy and bulky packages they carry, covering nearly the entire body, and still less how they are able to spring, thus encumbered, so nimbly from one ledge to another and so adroitly to descend the steep, slippery mountain slopes, or so fearlessly wade through the small but deep pools —Tjærn– which we so often encounter on our road. The most surprising thing is that our Klöf horses always prefer to be in the van, yes, even forcing their way to the front, where the path is narrowest, and the abyss at its side most appalling, and when they gain the desired position they seem to lead the entire party. What guides them in their turn? Simply the instinct with which Nature has endowed them.
Life in the mountains, and the daily intimate acquaintance with the giant forces of Nature, seem to create something corresponding in the character of the simple dwellers among the high valleys of Norway. As a type I may mention an old reindeer-hunter, whom we met in the mountains. Seventy winters had snown on his venerable locks, serving only however to ornament his proudly-borne head. Leaning on his rough but unerring rifle, motionless as a statue, he appears before us on a hill at some distance. Silent and solemn is his greeting as we pass, and we see him still yonder, motionless as the rocks, which soon hide him from our view. Thus he has to spend many a weary hour, even days, in order to earn his scanty living. To me it seemed a hard lot, but he is content – he knows no better, the world has not tempted him to discontent.
Not far from the highest point on our road lies a small stone hut, tumbledown, solitary, uninviting, but nevertheless a blessed refuge to the traveller who has been caught in rough weather, and I should say that the finest hotel in Europe is scarcely entered with such feelings of grateful contentment as this wretched Fjeldstue is taken possession of by the fatigued, frozen, or strayed traveller.
We were, however, lucky enough not to be in want of the refuge, as the weather became more and more lovely and the air more transparent as we ascended.
About half-way across the mountains we discovered, after some search, the horses which had been ordered to meet us here from the other side in Bergen’s Stift; and to order fresh animals to meet one half-way when crossing is certainly a wise plan, which I should recommend to every one, though I must honestly add that our horses did not appear the least exhausted in spite of their four hours’ trot yesterday and six to-day, continually ascending. In the open air we prepared and did ample justice to a simple fare, and no meal ever tasted better. And meanwhile we let our horses roam about and gather what moss they could in the mountain clefts.
After a rest of about two hours we again mount and resume our journey with renewed strength. It is still five hours’ journey to our destination on the coast.
We did not think that, after what we had already seen, a fresh grand view, even surpassing the former, would be revealed to our gaze; but we were mistaken.
Anything more grand, more impressive than the view from the last eminence, the Ocsar’s Houg, before we begin to descend, it is impossible to imagine! Before us loom the three Skagastölstinder, almost the loftiest peaks in the Scandinavian peninsula. More than seven thousand feet they raise their crests above the level of the sea, and they stand yonder as clearly defined as if within rifle-shot, whilst they are at least half a day’s journey distant. To their base no human being has ever penetrated, their top has never been trodden by man.
And they certainly appear terribly steep; snow cannot gather on their slopes, but only festoons the rocks here and there, or hides in the crevices, where the all-dispersing wind has lost its force. The mountain has a cold steel-gray color, and around the pointed cones snow-clouds move erratically, sometimes gathering in a most fantastic manner in a mass and again suddenly disappearing, as though chased by some invisible power.
And around us the dark jagged peaks of the Horungtinder, alternating with dazzling snow-fields, which increase in extent to the north, thus bespeaking their close proximity to the famous glacier of Justedalen.
Does this complete my picture? No; our glance has only swept the sun-bathed heights above, but now it is lowered, sinking with terror into yawning abysses, and lost in a gloomy depth, without outlines, without limit! A waterfall rushes wildly forward, downwards – whither? We see it not; we do not know; we can only imagine that it plunges into some appalling chasm below. In very favorable weather it is said to be possible to see the Ocean – the bottom of the abyss – quite plainly from this eminence; we could, however, only distinguish its faint outlines, as the sun shone right in our eyes. We saw, half “by faith” however, the innermost creek of the Lysterfjord. But remember this creek was rather below than before us!
“Surely it is not intended to descend into this abyss on horseback?” I ask with some apprehension. “Yes, it is,” responds my venerable guide with that inimitable, confidence-creating calmness which distinguishes the Norwegian. I involuntarily think compassionately of my neck. Perhaps the mountaineer observed my momentary surprise, as this race is gifted with remarkable keenness; perhaps not. However, I felt a slight flush on my face, and that decided me, coûte que coûte, never to dismount, however tempted. And of course I did not.
We had, in fact, no choice. We were bound to proceed by this road and no other, unless we desired to return all the way to Guldbrandsdalen, miss all our nicely-arranged trips around the Sogne and Nœrö fjords, and disappoint the steamer waiting for us with our carriage and traps. And above all, what an ignominious retreat! No; such a thought did not for a moment enter our head. Therefore come what may, forward!
On a balmy evening, as the rays of the setting sun tint the landscape, we find ourselves on the seashore, safe and sound.
But to attempt a description of the adventurous break-neck, giddy descent, I must decline. I can scarcely review it in my mind at this moment, when I attempt to gather the scattered fragments of this remarkable ride, the most extraordinary I ever performed. But one word I will add: one must not be afraid or subject to giddiness, else the Sogne Mountains had better be left out of the programme. Only have confidence in the mountain horse, and all will go well.
Well, had I even arrived as far as this in my journey, I would unfold to you a very different canvas, with warmer colors and a softer touch. I would, in the fertile valley of Fortun, at 62° latitude N., conjure up to your astonished gaze entire groves of wild cherry-trees laden with ripe fruit; I would show you corn, weighty and yellow three months after being sown, in close rich rows, or undulating oats ready for the sickle, covering extensive fields. I would lead you to the shore of the majestic fjord, and let you behold the towering mountains reflected sharp and clear in its depth, as though another landscape lay beneath the waves; and I would guide your glance upwards, towards the little farms nestling up there on the slope, a couple of thousand feet above your head, and which are only accessible from the valley by a rocky ladder. Yes, this and more too I would show you, but remember we stand at this moment on the crest of the mountain, and a yawning gap still divides us from the Canaan which is our journey’s end.
I have therefore no choice but to lay down my pen, and I do so with a call on you, my reader, to undertake this journey and experience for yourself its indescribable impressions; and if you do, I feel confident you will not find my description exaggerated.
Ride only once down the precipice between Optun and Lysterfjord, and you will find, I think, that the descent cannot be accurately described in words; but believe me, the memory thereof will never fade from your mind, neither will you repent the toil.
A summer’s day in the Sogne Mountains of old Norway will, as well for you as for me, create rich and charming recollections – recollections retained through one’s whole life. —Temple Bar.
